Well-known Korean publicist Seo Kyoung-duk, professor of Seoul-based Sungshin Women’s University, and a team from an MBC entertainment show began to advertise bibimbap, a popular Korean dish made of steamed rice mixed with meat, fresh vegetables and hot sauce, in a 60-second video on a Times Square screen starting Tuesday.

The commercial visualizes the taste of bibimbap by using traditional Korean songs and dances, and the martial art taekwondo.

It is a remake of a 30-second bibimbap spot advertised in 2010. This time, the footage will be flashed twice an hour for a total of 1,500 times a month from Tuesday.

“Bibimbap has been advertised every year through a full-page ad on the New York Times, a spot commercial on a Times Square screen or street posters in New York,” Seo said. “The latest ad is an extension of such efforts to promote the Korean dish.”

So far, Seo has advertised Dokdo islets, the East Sea and the Korean song of “Arirang” in Times Square as well as bibimbap.

Do any other countries do this? Are any other countries this desperate for international attention? I can imagine the exasperation of the people behind these campaigns. "Everything in Korea is the best, why doesnt the rest of the world know this?"

Heres the link so you can see the link so you can see the ultra cheesy pictures of the ad/video. Not sure if that will be effective in gritty New York City.

I'm not mad at all but such things like ads for bibimbab, Dokdo, East Sea, and Arirang are not tourism campaigns. They are more like awareness campaigns that borderline propaganda. I'm teaching tourism now to my students and theyre baffled as why they cant use images of kimchi, Kim Yuna, and Samsung on their project posters.

I disagree that it's a tourism advertisement. I saw a special on this on Arirang TV, and it was basically a bunch of plucky Korean young folks traveling various countries (including Times Square) and serving up samples of bibimbap. The attitude of the TV show was very much "Let's enlighten the world about the health, economy, and taste benefits of this important and unique national dish of Korea". It included dramatic scenes in which the Koreans were perplexed because people didn't like the spiciness, or because they were going to run out of ingredients, but they persevered, and in the end, the dish was a fantastic success at some food festival at NYU. Everyone loves Korea, the end.

I find it a touch irritating. All of the unique and exotic foods here in Korea, and the best they can come up with to show off their culinary genius to the world is vegetables and meat on rice? Like every other country has not come up with some version of that in the past? Bibimbap is delicious, but it's hardly innovative.

They should be advertising dwenjjang. That stuff kicks miso's ass, and has actual health benefits.

If you were going to try and promote Korea as a tourist destination you'd be thinking on a longer time scale than just one campaign. This is more of a 'raising awareness' thing, and it's healthy and the flavors aren't too strong so would be easier for Koreans to offer.

Anything to promote foreign cultures as normal and having benefits must be a good thing, like this clip for example;

Bibimbap is such a silly dish to attempt to pass off as iconic. Give a five year old some rice and some side dishes, and he will probably produce bibimbap purely by accident. It's the finger-painting of cooking. Korea has better to offer.

For me, Korea aggressively promotes some of their worst things. Food and music here are pretty bad, but their films are actually very good. Still, I meet adults who haven't seen some of the best Korean films (like Oldboy or The Good, The Bad and the Weird) because they're 'old'

I don't like bibimbab. It's tasteless without a lot of added sauce, and the red sauce to mix in isn't actually very nice. It would be better to use a completely difference sauce. Maybe something Indian, Chinese or Thai